"I'll even throw in the ChokeBot." The choking theme in this show is hilarious. But they have some serious Grand Prix fans on the show, as the level of detail of the Grand Prix coverage is impressive... the drivers, the cars, the track, and the announcer are all a nice historical homage.
"Wow, this might be hard to drive with such a huge, throbbing erection." It's one-liners like that that make me watch every week.
Started watching it because of this thread, good show. I was wondering though, since there's no subtitles how many people understand the French conversations? I speak French so I get all the bits but I know whenever a show has something in Spanish I'm totally lost, I wonder how many jokes I'm missing. I guess it's nice to be on the other side of that for once. For example in the last episode, the helicopter pilot I think he yelled something like "Mange!" and fired at Archer, it had me laughing because it was out of nowhere. He basically said "Eat it." Spoilered just in case Spoiler It's rarely something important but what got me curious was in that same episode I believe they explained that Benoit (balls) had stolen the money, but that conversation was entirely in French and I had no subtitles. Did a lot of people miss this? That was the first time something was explained in French. But I guess with the guard saying loudly "Benoit" and seeing Benoit (balls) with the money you got the point. I see that a lot of people on this board are Americans and I don't know how much French people understand or if it's a common thing that's simple enough to get. Being from Quebec everyone I know speaks both English and French and I don't really have a good idea of how common it is in the U.S.
An okay episode, but I realized what bothered me about it; Ray, the gay guy, is being written in as a main character in many Season 2 episodes, while being less interesting or memorable than just about every other cast character. See, Lana is the straight guy, and occasionally, so is Cyril, while everyone is some mix of odd and crazy. They're all pretty amusing and represent a clear character archetype from which to make jokes. But Ray? What's his purpose? A second straight man (comedically, that is) in addition to Lana? What does that add? Meanwhile, he's not particularly unusual or funny; just a responsible gay guy who delivers some pretty weak, half-hearted dialogue. I have no clue what he brings to the table; if someone like Cheryl is one note, he is zero note.
I think that they originally meant for Lana and Cyril to be the straight guys, but then they took them in another direction, so now they're trying to push more of that onto Ray. Plus having a gay guy play the straight man is exactly the kind of tongue-in-cheek gag they would pull on this show. It seems like they're using him as a sort of joke swiss army knife. He can fill manly roles, effeminate roles, competent roles, depraved roles, and allows them to make gay jokes without being cruel. Plus, he can serve as an effective foil to every other character in the show, which is probably his defining characteristic.
But Lana is still the straight guy, and you certainly don't need two of them surrounding a single funny man. Problem is, I can't recall Ray succeeding in any of those roles, or even having any funny, well-delivered quips. He feels too artificial, like the creators are either trying too hard to "protect" him, or someone decided to shoehorn a gay guy into the show, but without any good jokes or definite ideas on who the hell he should be. All the roles you mentioned above are also filled by one of the many other characters in a particular scene, so he feels even more unnecessary and extraneous. Hell, he isn't even a particularly good joke target; Mallory's homophobic comments are pretty weak and humorless.
I think Ray is a fairly funny character at times, but the best part about him being in the show are the gay jokes that Malory Archer drops at his expense. Malory: I am not sharing a room with you. Gillette: No, I'm sharing it with you and it's the last room in the hotel. No view but it's got two queens. Malory: Where's the other one, greasing up in the bathroom?
Holy shit, the links in this episode to the rest of the show was awesome. I especially enjoyed the ping-pong paddle line. I love this show.
Look back to the first episode he was in, "Skytanic." That entire exchange between he and Archer about dismantling the bomb was one of the funniest moments in the series. Would you really expect a character like Archer to not make fun of such a flamboyantly gay character? They manage to allow Archer to be an asshole while Ray is saving his life and showing that he isn't just a punchline, but a valuable member of the team. I've liked that this season they've allowed Ray to become more active out in the field instead of just being the gay guy in the office. Plus there's this line: RAY: My mama told me how much she loved me all the time. MALORY:And look how you turned out. RAY: Umm, a happy adult?
For you. For me, it was so goddamn uproarious I can't even remember it. And it's an absolutely horrible example to use either way; my problems were with Ray becoming a central character, which only occurred in season 2. When he was a minor character in season 1, including that episode, he was fine. Like I wrote above, the problem is that in a cast of crazy, eccentric characters, he is a straight man along with Lana; competent, normal, with his only quirk being his homosexuality, which isn't nearly as funny or unusual today as it was in the 90s. Literally, Ray is no one at all. He has zero fucking purpose on the show as a main character. What do these two sentences have to do with anything I wrote above? The ppoint of the show is pretty fucking simple; to be funny. What the hell does it matter if someone is a "valuable member of the team" or not? They can be freaking useless and hilarious in the way they're used, like Cheryl or Pam. I thought that was a lame dud of a joke. I've heard way more creative and funny gay insults from my friends on a random night out than anything we've seen from Mallory or Sterling. Not to mention, it's kind of boring and predictable when you have a gay character on a comedy.
I guess I misunderstood your point. For one, I can't completely agree that he's becoming a central character. I can't recall him ever being the driving force behind any of the plots. My only critique, which I think we agree on, is that he is essentially another Lana. But I'm fine with his role as an additional straight-man because 1: both he and Lana have moments where they abandon this role and 2: I think he's a pretty unique character. I'm sure you can provide plenty of exceptions to prove me wrong, but you don't often see a gay character being used as the straight-man. I can't think of an example outside of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and Val Kilmer played it way more butch. That's why I liked the joke so much. A lame, predictable gay joke would have just ended at "and look at how you turned out." Ray's response showed that the writers are pretty aware that Sterling and Malory are making the standard jokes.
Well, during the Monte Carlo episode, for instance, I spent the whole time wondering what the point of two straight men surrounding a single funny man was. Think about that episode. Ray didn't need to be there at all. The episode would have been smoother, and nothing would have changed if it was just Archer and Lana. Well, one thing would have changed...it would have been funnier. And I can only recall a single time when Ray actually abandons the straight man role; a 4 second snippet where, at the party thrown by Archer in his apartment, he mentions going to suck an unconscious Cyril's dick. The show already had a better, more established, interesting straight man in Lana. Shoehorning in a second one was an indefensibly dumb move. I wasn't even going to come up with any examples; I just think the sexuality of the straight man is completely irrelevant, and adds zero uniqueness or interest to the role. What if you had a straight man who was boring, unoriginal, and unnecessary...but his face was painted blue? Would you be defending that as something new and interesting, then? Meh, I wasn't a fan of the comeback, either. Felt too long and wordy for a snappy retort, and was too defensive; it would have been funnier with Ray being a vindictive queen who insulted Mallory. (And there is no shortage of material) But that's the thing; they're "protecting" the Ray character too much, in contrast to the crazy, immoral quirks of the rest of the cast.
Well, season 2 is over. I thought that episode was good, but not great. However, this may have been the greatest thing I've seen on this show yet:
I enjoyed the final two part episode, (obviously, the girl needed to die, since if she happily married Archer, the show is essentially over) but I had a rather strange reaction to parts of it. See, I really liked the Barry character. I don't know if this was the reaction the writers were going for, but the guy is a selfish douchebag, like Archer, except more likable and consistent in his behavior, and dare I say it...funnier. That, and his voice actor is fucking awesome. I started thinking how the show would be even better if it was either centered around Barry, or Barry was a central character. Also, as a viewer, I was basically rooting for him against Archer the entire time, including the climactic final scene. Barry, douchebag or not, goes to Russia to save the life of his mortal enemy Sterling Archer, only to get fucked over once again. Bringing him back as a super powerful cyborg was a neat idea; it's just a shame he couldn't have ended the life of another worthless character or two on the terrace. (cough Ray cough)
I think it would have been awesome if Barry and Sterling were forced to work with each other. I can picture so many hilarious scenes with them trying to one up each other and Lana trying to keep it all under control.
Yeah, it's a very good, natural idea; I'm surprised the writers never used it during the first two seasons. Granted, they can still do it, but it would probably be too much to swallow, with Sterling basically ending Barry's human life and ruining his marriage, and Barry killing Sterling's wife and very nearly murdering him.
I finally gave this show a try last night, and even though I only watched a few bits. It had me laughing. I will be watching more Archer.
"You just killed like 10 pirates!" "Yeah, if the 5 year old me knew that he'd get a huge boner." Excellent episode. This show continues to make me laugh harder than anything else on TV.
"Hi. It’s the 1930s. Can we have our words and clothes and shitty airplanes back?" "Two personal records: For breath-holding and sharks shot in the frickin' face!" God I love this show.